


Branded by Ice and Fire

by politicalmamaduck



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, R plus L equals J, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:16:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6103048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmamaduck/pseuds/politicalmamaduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Both Lyanna and Arya Stark are born with the old gods' mark-- the sigil of the House from which their soulmate comes is indelibly marked on their bodies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Branded by Ice and Fire

She had been born with the mark on her side—her right side, just below her armpit, on one of her ribs.

The three-headed dragon sigil of House Targaryen stood in stark relief against her pale skin, as if demanding a glance; once caught, it would be difficult to take one’s eyes away. It seemed as though it was branded there and would burn to the touch; as their house words demanded, it could only be claimed by fire and blood—or so it appeared.

Lyanna Stark looked up from the dragon staring back at her and she shuddered as she met her own eyes in the mirror.

When she was a little girl, not yet old enough to understand, she had overheard Old Nan and her mother whispering about the brand on her side.

She had felt uncomfortable, as though she had done something wrong. She hid behind a corner and listened until she felt it was safe to scamper onward toward the kitchens.

_“What should we do?”_

_“Say nothing yet. Especially not to your husband. There is no need to discuss it until the girl comes of age. The old gods will make their intent known.”_

To Lyanna’s knowledge, Old Nan and her mother were the only two people on the earth—besides herself—that knew about the old gods’ mark. Some called it a gift to know from which House their soul’s mate would come, even before they truly understood what a soulmate was or what it could mean.

Even at a young age, Lyanna knew that, for her, it was not a gift.

She could not imagine how it would ever be possible for her to have a soulmate from House Targaryen.

She also knew her mother would never have dared to tell her father about the mark, even without Old Nan saying so—not with his great plans that had all the servants whispering and had the ravens arriving daily from all over the Seven Kingdoms.

And so the years passed, and neither Lyanna, nor her beloved mother, nor Old Nan with her stories told anyone how Lyanna had been claimed by the old gods as belonging to one of House Targaryen.

And now, as a young woman of age, she could not use its existence as a defense against her father forcing her to marry Robert Baratheon.

She knew if her mother were alive, this never would have happened; it never would have gone so far. Lyarra Stark had been a strong woman, a true daughter of the North, the rightful Lady of Winterfell. Lyanna knew her mother would not have approved of her father’s plans. Ned would not have been sent so far away to foster, and Lyanna wouldn’t have been left to fend for herself for so long. Brandon wouldn’t have been betrothed to a southron girl who knew nothing of the North. It all would have been so different. She wanted to reach out and wrap her arms around her mother and her brothers, all together and at once, to hold them and tell them how much she loved them. She wanted them to reassure her that everything would be all right.

But Lyanna was alone; her brothers had gone on to the feast ahead of her and her mother had been dead for years. She wrapped her arms around herself, unconsciously stroking the mark on her right side as she smoothed out her gown, before she straightened and stood as tall as she could.

 

Lyanna knew that, strangely, none of her three brothers bore a mark.

Her soon to be sister-in-law, Catelyn Tully, wore a Stark direwolf on the inside of her right wrist, but Brandon bore no Tully fish to complement it. She wondered how Catelyn would feel about that, how she would feel trying to adapt to the ways of the North.

She wondered how Robert would feel when he saw Lyanna’s own mark, her dragon, for the first time, and when he would realize she was not like the southron girls he bedded.

She gritted her teeth and steeled herself to enter the main hall without even realizing how she had arrived there.

 

When Rhaegar started singing, Lyanna wept.

Not from the beauty of the prince or his song, as everyone had thought.

She wept because she finally _knew_ what the old gods’ mark meant.

She wept because she felt her heart would burst if she did not, as she trembled with the sudden force of her realization.  

 

She would never forget the way he looked at her when she showed him her mark.

Neither one of them could breathe.

 

It was many moons later, in a delusional pain-filled haze, gasping for air in the stifling Dornish heat, that she suddenly remembered seeing beautiful Ashara Dayne dancing with both of her older brothers that fateful night and catching a glimpse of a direwolf on the graceful Dornishwoman’s back through her silks.

 

She wondered if Ashara had cried too upon learning her soul mate’s identity.

She wondered if Catelyn Tully had wept for Brandon the way she wept for Rhaegar.

She had been relieved to know her soul’s true half, but there would be no relief for her now.

With the tears streaming down her face, she wished that the next woman born of House Stark to bear a mark on her body would know more happiness in the old gods’ choice than she, that the next child to be born with a Stark direwolf on their skin would know no pain and suffering at the hands of their House.

_I will not rest until the old gods’ mark brings a daughter of my House true happiness._

 

_Promise me, Ned…_

 

….

 

No matter how hard she tried, and pleaded with the old gods, Arya could never understand why she had a stupid stag branded on her back.

She knew her lady mother had the symbol of their house on her wrist and that everyone had expected her to marry her dead uncle Brandon, but it turned out that her heart’s true half belonged to her father after all.

Her big brother Jon didn’t have a mark, she knew that. She wasn’t sure about her other brothers and sister. Somehow, she thought that none of them did.

So why was she the one stuck with the old gods’ mark? She didn’t want to have to worry about finding her “soul’s mate.”

She didn’t want to get married anytime soon, and definitely not to anyone related to Joffrey Baratheon. She shuddered at the memories.

None of the Baratheons who were left were unmarried though, she reminded herself. She had paid enough attention to Maester Luwin’s lessons before the royal visit to Winterfell to know that.

Stannis, the dead king’s brother who was old enough to be her father, had his homely wife, and Tommen was now married to Margaery Tyrell after Joffrey died. The rest of the Baratheons were dead….so how could she have a soulmate from House Baratheon?

The only boy she had ever thought about in _that way_ had been Gendry. Sometimes she thought she might be one of those that would think about girls in that way, but she had never met a beautiful girl she wanted to marry either. She could never understand what Sansa saw in all those romantic songs. She’d rather learn how to fight for herself than have a knight come rescue her. She never wanted to be the lady of a castle, bearing lots of children. She wanted to _do_ something besides stitching and needlework and being a proper lady, and as far as she was concerned, marriage didn’t enter into it.

 

It was a few years later, after the wars were all over, when Edric Storm became Edric Baratheon at the hands of King Stannis, and the Brotherhood without Banners also pledged their allegiance to the victor of winter, that Gendry Waters finally learned he had a family after all.

He pledged his sword to his new half-brother and prepared to depart the city of his birth to rebuild the Stormlands after the devastation of war and the plague of greyscale with the new Lord of Storm’s End.

Arya Stark could hardly breathe when she saw him again for the first time. He had grown even taller and broader, and she assumed he had forgotten all about the scrawny and scrappy little girl that had pretended to be a boy and that he had called _milady_.

Seeing him again was like a flood in the Riverlands.

Later, in her room, she finally cried for her father and her mother and her brothers and her sister and for herself, for she finally understood what the crowned stag on her back meant; that her heart and the old gods had been leading her down this path all along.

She and Gendry cried together the first time he saw it.

 

Far off in the north, the weirwood leaves of Winterfell’s godswood rustled as if smoothing someone’s hair, as if taking a long sigh after many years.

_I will not rest until the old gods’ mark brings a daughter of my House true happiness._

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and constructive feedback always appreciated.  
> Much love as always to my beta boo Desiree and my best friend Amanda for their ability to always bring out my best, witty comments, and willingness to listen to me talk about ASOIAF theories.  
> You can find me on tumblr at politicalmamaduck.tumblr.com!


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